


One Hath Wounded Me, That's By Me Wounded

by stew (julie)



Series: Buckaroo and the Kurgan [2]
Category: Highlander (Movies), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1989-12-17
Updated: 1989-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:07:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22266862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew
Summary: The Kurgan has killed the Highlander and won the Prize. What will he now do with his life? And how should Buckaroo fit into his plans…?
Relationships: Buckaroo Banzai/Penny Priddy, Buckaroo Banzai/Rawhide
Series: Buckaroo and the Kurgan [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602835
Kudos: 4





	One Hath Wounded Me, That's By Me Wounded

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** The title is borrowed from the play _Romeo and Juliet_. 
> 
> **First published:** in my zine “Samurai Errant: Cavalier Tales Quixotic and Profane” #3 on 17 December 1989

# One Hath Wounded Me,  
That’s By Me Wounded

♦

_The Prize?_ What sort of prize was this? The Kurgan knelt, hands and knees amidst shattered glass on the floor of the studio. He could feel mortality in him like a sickly curse. Give me the Prize! Don’t make me one of them. _Damn you to Hell!_

He’d get up now if it wasn’t for the clamor in his mind, he’d get up and search them out, and… Amazingly, he fell further into himself, unable to rely on his previously invincible body. 

The result of this last battle had been a foregone conclusion after all the years, all the deaths; though young MacLeod had fought bravely and well, he surely could not have expected to win. The Highlander loved and trusted, and saw that as his advantage. The Kurgan believed such emotions were weakness – but even the unwilling love so newly woken in his own heart couldn’t detract from the fact that he had lived for three thousand years, that he had killed countless immortals, that he now possessed all their power. It was not even a possibility that the Highlander should win, should be the One. 

Even so, the Highlander had cut him badly as the Kurgan let his guard down, pretended doubt – a ploy to lure him within reach. It had been an easy matter then to take his head, the immortal’s power buffeting him, surging into him. With all the rest, the Prize, the power of all the immortals down through the centuries distilled in he and MacLeod; now all his. Though it was agony this time, unlike the countless times before. Agony, and then nothing but the clamorous mortality beating him down. And the ache of his unhealed wounds.

And grief. Grief and self-loathing and a useless hate for the unfairness of life. But why should he grieve for the Highlander? He looked around to MacLeod’s body. Died an immortal – for a long moment he was envious of that paradox. Better that fate than this sordid time bomb now ticking away what remained of his life. It was almost over, this long, glorious existence on Earth. And when he died, would anyone grieve for him like the woman Brenda now grieved over the Highlander? The Kurgan watched her as she bent over the mutilated body. 

Somehow she’d found it in herself to rearrange Conner into some semblance of life. As carefully as a funeral parlor attendant she had lifted his severed head and placed it again in relation to his shoulders, had straightened his limbs. For the warrior he had been, she lay his sword, the sword of his long-ago friend, along his body, the hilt clasped in his hands on his chest. Once all that was done she knelt by him and cried. The Highlander had been afraid to love her, but that might have changed. If only Conner had won, if only it was the other that had died. 

Brenda looked slowly around to find the Kurgan’s gaze upon her. She stared back, unable to imagine that he could do anything worse to her than had already been done. And she could almost feel sorry for him – something was bearing down on him, that uncaring invincibility replaced by fear and uncertainty. His eyes even asked her for answers. It was easy to find the old contempt and loathing for him within her – she flung it at him in a look. Gloriously, he seemed to flinch under her useless attack. Brenda turned back to Conner for a last cold kiss, and left the building. Left the Kurgan to his misery. 

The grief he had felt so strongly, then, had been Brenda’s. The Kurgan realized this under the lash of her contempt. He could read and feel her emotions without even trying. It followed that the clamor in his brain was the register of all New York City’s sordid humanity. To not only be mortal, but to know their every thought? What Prize was this, in the name of the gods? 

What had he expected? Riches, knowledge, power? To become something as different again as the immortals had been different from the mortals? Surely after three thousand years of systematically working towards this moment, mortality was no reward. He had believed himself the gods’ chosen one… 

Sirens. The police come to investigate the mayhem he and the Highlander had caused. The police who were suddenly a danger. For centuries the only thing he had had to fear was discovery – a crazy possibility he had toyed with occasionally – but now the thought of his few remaining years being cut short by a bullet, or being spent behind bars, was intolerable. These thoughts made him move.

It was laughably easy to evade the mortals now surrounding and infiltrating the old bakery. The Kurgan could sense each of them; where they were, where they were heading. He could even find where Brenda was in the city soup – safely away, heading blindly, numbly home. Not that she was staying there, she was going to pack up and leave, afraid that the Kurgan might come after her. Amused again, he continued down the river. What Brenda didn’t know was that he could find her anywhere – and also that he didn’t give a damn. 

What to do now? He had never planned beyond the Gathering, assuming that the Prize would give him new purpose, new goals. But it seemed to have given him nothing more useful than the party trick of reading minds – an ability he had virtually developed himself after living amongst mortals for so long. In fact the only person who had held any mystery for him in the last thousand years was Buckaroo Banzai. 

Buckaroo, who had made the Kurgan feel love, and who had then sent him away. Buckaroo, who had expected the Highlander to win. Standing still to concentrate, the Kurgan reached out mentally to find Buckaroo at his Institute in New Jersey. 

Sitting alone in the study, mourning, disbelieving. Coldly, calmly sane in contrast to the madness that had simmered in him. Waiting. Was Buckaroo never to know what had happened? His friend of ten years, his lover of one night had left him in order to go fight to the death. So when would he know if Rawhide had finally died? None of the headhunter’s victims had been him; he was therefore the headhunter, and winning. _You’ll loathe me_ , he had told Buckaroo. _I’ll wreak havoc, I’ll kill_. 

<I don’t care, I love you – whoever you are. It makes no sense, but it’s the truth.>

<I’m alive! I won.>

Buckaroo stood, gazing around him. _I’m finally mad. Hearing voices_. But on consideration, it didn’t seem so unlikely that he would know, somehow – _He’s alive_. 

Cutting off the brief, uncertain contact, the Kurgan turned and kept walking. Buckaroo would expect him to go to him. After they had become lovers, Buckaroo had wanted to give up everything else – in one mad, touching babble, _We have to be together, it’s just the two of us now_. Leave his wife Penny, his friends, his beloved Institute, his madness. Maybe even Buckaroo could get restless. The man who hated bureaucracy caught in a trap of his own devising. But the Kurgan didn’t want company, had never had love – he would not now go to Buckaroo, as a helpless mortal. He needed strength of his own first, turf of his own on which to meet him. He wouldn’t accept Buckaroo’s pity – an offer of work, a home. He had let Buckaroo offer those things once before. 

There had been times in his life when he had felt a closeness with a mortal, even another immortal. He had drawn on this within him to become Rawhide, with Buckaroo maybe knowingly providing friendship and generosity enough for both of them. The Kurgan had shed so much of himself to play the role, and Buckaroo had filled his emptiness full, and those ten years had been spent sliding into that odd state called love. 

Ramirez had been a premonition of his relationship with Buckaroo. For long years Ramirez had taught the Kurgan, centuries ago. Again he had acted a role – the promising, faithful protégé eager to learn skills and honor at his mentor’s side – and Ramirez had been fooled. When he finally realized exactly what he had taken in as apprentice, Ramirez was filled with rage. He had sought the ultimate revenge – using his skills and knowledge to patiently train so many of the other immortals over the centuries, to try to ensure the Kurgan would not win the Prize. The Kurgan had never let him know he still harbored a respect and liking for Ramirez, alongside his contempt for the weaker characteristics of the immortal. He sometimes reflected that Ramirez would have forgiven much had he known the Kurgan did hold some tattered remnants of what Ramirez would call humanity. 

Faced with the similar discovery that his friend Rawhide was not who he had seemed, Buckaroo had reacted with more grace. It remained to be seen whether Buckaroo would now regard him as a friend or an enemy – though surely the love he felt for the Kurgan could not wither. 

But all this left the Kurgan with his original problem – what were his goals now? If he wanted power and strength, then he would have to find a place, a people that suited him. A position from which to approach Buckaroo and petition for his approval. And then, with Buckaroo trusting him, loving him… The dilemma had been sidestepped that one night they spent as lovers. All that had mattered then was the love, the lonely need, the lust. The two bodies crying out to reach each other, to be each other. And the Kurgan was going to battle; that had mattered, too. Buckaroo consigning his friend to the Fates, torn between the love and the unwillingness to condone. 

Damn the man anyway. What did _he_ want with Buckaroo’s approval? As an immortal, readying himself for the Gathering, all he had wanted was for Buckaroo to _know_ him. He had broken the rules, of course, when for the first time he had told a mortal something of the truth. Unable to resist the unexpected urge to see Buckaroo, to find out if he would understand. The craziest of impulses – he had even given the mortal a chance to judge, to behead him, trusting only that Buckaroo was the most clear-sighted being he had ever found in this gods-forgotten backwater cesspool. Again the Kurgan felt the crippling regret – mortal emotion that it was – that he had won, that he had not died an immortal with all his illusions and hopes and certainties intact. 

Too late, now. But he would not give in to the regret, he would refuse despair. There were still things for him, mortal dreams he could fulfill. Inertia would carry him through until he could find better reasons.

♦

‘You want to go, don’t you?’ 

‘Of course I do, Reno.’ Buckaroo smiled without humor at his friend, and carefully shifted the baby sleeping in his arms. He hadn’t expected the message the Kurgan had sent him on videotape to still upset him – he had viewed it twenty times already – and was afraid his unease would disturb Evan’s rest. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ 

Reno seemed to choose his words with the utmost care. ‘I am not so drawn to him as you are. And I couldn’t trust him.’ 

‘You trusted him with many things when he was here at the Institute with us.’ 

‘That was different, and you know it. Those beheadings in New York, then joining up with Xan – over the past year, he’s more than proven he’s not our Rawhide.’ 

‘He still cares for me.’ 

‘You aren’t so blind to reason that you think he just wants the pleasure of your company, are you?’ Reno muffled the volume of his voice for Evan’s benefit, but not the emotion behind it. ‘You must at least doubt his motives.’ 

Buckaroo’s smile now held some wistful memory. ‘There were times when he took pleasure in little else. Some things don’t change, Reno.’ 

‘You’re crazy,’ the older man muttered. His dark eyes roved aimlessly in thought for a long moment, and then brightened in familiar curiosity. ‘I’ve been so polite and restrained all this time, but I’ve got to ask… What _did_ happen that night in New York? You were with him, weren’t you? I only ask so I can tell you with more authority what a foolish thing it would be to go to him.’ 

‘You’ve guessed the truth of that, haven’t you? We became lovers that night. He’d loved me all those years, and I’d had no idea of it.’ He added sadly, gathering Evan up to kiss her, ‘And I’d loved him, too.’ 

‘But you didn’t _know_ him – only a part of him. How can you trust him? Especially when he has so many holds on you.’ 

‘Yes, he _does_ have claims on me and my loyalties.’ Buckaroo nodded. ‘You know I mean to go.’ 

‘Xan’s dead, but Sabah’s the same. It’s just as dangerous to you.’ 

‘I went there once for Peggy, and survived.’ 

‘And now you go there for Rawhide. If that didn’t have such crazy logic, I’d be happier.’ 

‘I don’t believe that Sabah could be the same. He smashed the World Crime League – Sabah is a very minor den of iniquity now.’ 

Reno gazed long and hard at his friend. ‘There are some who say he did that for you.’ 

Unable to hide the smug but not unbecoming smile of a lover for whom grand sacrifices are made, Buckaroo shrugged. ‘So maybe I should go and find out the truth of that.’ 

‘And what of Penny and Evan?’ 

‘What indeed?’ Buckaroo sighed. He held his child tenderly, firmly against him, rubbing his face against the top of her delicate, warm head. ‘What indeed?’ 

♦

When Buckaroo found Penny in her room, she took Evan from him, and sat in her chair by the window, rocking gently back and forth. Buckaroo had watched mother and child in that chair for months. Hugely pregnant, Penny had rocked herself for hours at a time, curiously withdrawn, self-contained, endlessly waiting. Then, to quiet the baby, or when breastfeeding, Penny would sit there rocking to and fro until sometimes Buckaroo would wonder at the lack of furrows worn in the wooden floor. 

Now he watched her, thinking that if Peggy had had a child, maybe she would have sat just so. _But the strain would not be there, nor the unhappiness, and she’d have been eager in my bed tonight_. He pulled himself up abruptly. Comparisons were futile and, moreover, grossly unfair to Penny – she was a person in her own right, not someone for Buckaroo to mold into an image of his dead bride. 

But one regret he couldn’t put aside was that Peggy had never been a mother. There had always been so much time ahead of them; even the wedding kept getting put off. Though, as it turned out, that was more of a blessing than not. And Evan was a perfection; no regret could attach to her. 

‘I want you to have her,’ Penny said out of the blue. Buckaroo did not pretend to misunderstand her. He turned away so that she was addressing his back. Her voice was tired, dull, resigned. ‘I could never provide her with such a home.’ 

‘I wouldn’t stop you taking her.’ 

‘I know. But the Institute – it’s not a home for me, but I’ll be glad to think of her here. I can’t imagine a better place for her to grow.’ Penny pressed her face against the baby’s fragile skin, even as Buckaroo had done. ‘I’ll stay in touch – I want her to know me. I’ll visit. You must send me pictures. Dear Evan, poor Evan – fancy being landed with _me_ as a mother.’

Calling their child by name might have made Buckaroo feel all the regret afresh. For a time he thought back to the brief joy Penny had brought him – unbelievably an incarnation of Peggy, to be fallen in love with immediately. But within hours of meeting her, Rawhide had died. Buckaroo had coped with the clean, pure grief as best he could under the pressure of the attack on Yoyodyne. Then he’d thought he’d lost Penny, too – but beyond all reason she came to life again, a gift as it were from the Lectroids. They’d made love in the bus on the way home. He often thought that Evan must have been conceived then, before the madness. 

When they returned to the Institute to find Rawhide’s body had gone, the bleakest period of his life started. Becoming the Kurgan’s lover, arriving home to Penny’s announcement that she was three months pregnant, then the reassurance that the Kurgan had survived his battle – those days had certainly helped get Buckaroo on a saner footing – his emotions had, however, seemed permanently placed on hold. Until Evan was born, he had wondered if he would ever again feel anything but madness. He said now, ‘I’m sorry that it’s turned out this way. I never meant to hurt you.’ 

‘I know that.’ Penny sounded warmer now, and more regretful. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. I feel like the second Mrs de Winter – except there isn’t just one Rebecca, but two. It wasn’t your fault that you couldn’t cut your ties to them.’ 

‘Are you so sure of that?’ 

‘Anyway, you know it’s not just that. If I could have made a home for myself here in your Manderley, found my own life to live, then it wouldn’t have mattered so much. We would have had enough to share, and each our own lives as well. As it is – I must go and find my own life elsewhere. It’s not that I won’t miss Evan, and what we had. And it’s not that I haven’t found peace and strength here. I was a mess before you found me.’ After a moment, she added, ‘You _do_ understand, don’t you, Buckaroo?’ 

‘Yes.’ He turned to her then, and she saw the tears in his eyes. But Penny was so separate from him already, he could not even ask for the comfort of her embrace. He tried in vain to remember the last time they’d made love. 

‘It’s not a failure, Buckaroo, don’t think of our marriage as a failure. Just think of Evan – she’s so perfect, isn’t she? I’ll stay with her until you come back from Sabah.’ Penny smiled quietly at Buckaroo’s surprise. ‘Of course I knew you’d go,’ she said gently. 

♦

This time, Buckaroo approached the cave city in Sabah by the main road, figuring that an invited guest should have no need to be secretive. In many ways, he’d prefer to sneak in the way La Negrette had shown him, and take a look around before confronting his old friend. He walked because the closer he came to the city, the slower he wanted to travel. Walking let him contemplate – he was too fired up to call it meditating on – his confused feelings. All he could hope for was that there would be some resolution. What that might be didn’t seem important, for each solution carried its share of unhappiness. 

As Buckaroo reached the villages and farms sprawled around the city, and the jungles thinned out, his heart rose. The land seemed prosperous enough, the people seemed satisfied. Maybe the Kurgan’s rule was more agreeable than Xan’s.

Too soon, he arrived at the city gates set into the cave entrance. There were guards there, and he seemed to be expected. A familiar face came to greet him. 

‘Seth! Not _quite_ the last person I thought to run into.’ 

‘Well, I figured the guy was a friend of yours – plus he did Xan in. You gotta swear allegiance somewhere.’ 

‘And change it as often as necessary?’ 

‘Buckaroo, that’s a bit below the belt.’ Seth put on a convincing display of wounded pride. 

‘Where is he, Seth? Take me to him.’ 

‘He’s in the main hall with about a million other people. Or I can take you to your room, and he’ll meet you there privately later.’ 

‘Later?’ Buckaroo grimaced. ‘No, let’s get this over with. I can cope with witnesses.’

Seth grinned and led him off. ‘Just don’t get mushy on him. He’s got a reputation to keep up.’ 

This was greeted with a glower. ‘I’ll do my best,’ was all that he promised. 

The Kurgan was seated at a table, impassively concentrating on an energetic discussion between about a dozen motley humans. Buckaroo got the impression that the Kurgan would listen, not just to their words, and then would make his own decision. Around them, people of all ages and races were noisily finishing a meal. Buckaroo stood there quietly beside Seth for a while, taking in the sight of his lover. 

The Kurgan looked much the same as when Buckaroo had seen him last, and just as enigmatic. The black hair was shorter, brushed loosely back in long waves from his face to fall cropped across the back of his neck. The eyes which at times had reflected hazel and green, were a warm grey. What Buckaroo could see of the well-built body was dressed in heavy, worn greys and blacks.

Eventually the Kurgan looked up, and abruptly stopped listening to his subjects’ continuing dispute. 

‘Look who I found by the gates,’ Seth said.

‘Thank you, Seth.’ The Kurgan stood, and came around the table to Buckaroo. ‘I didn’t know if you would come.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Buckaroo told him. 

‘I hoped.’ He smiled, but seemed uneasy. ‘Maybe I could show you to your room.’ 

‘OK. I have to admit it would be nice to get this backpack off.’

Buckaroo followed him out of the hall, and up a spiral stair. They were silent, when there seemed so much to say. ‘Here.’ The Kurgan ushered him into a large room dominated by an enormous four-poster bed. He must have noticed Buckaroo’s attention was caught by it, for he commented, ‘You’ll find the furnishings around here are mostly anachronisms. Out of time and out of place.’ 

‘It’s charming.’ Buckaroo headed for the window, amazed that such a large opening would be allowed in what he’d assumed was the outer wall. He found himself gazing down a sheer cliff. ‘And impregnable?’ The cliff continued high above them. Heavy metal shutters were slid back into the cliff face, while decorative wooden lattice folded back to either side. ‘I’m impressed.’ 

‘You weren’t given a guest room last time you were here?’ the Kurgan asked wryly. 

‘Not exactly.’ Buckaroo turned and propped himself against the window ledge. ‘So tell me – what was the Prize?’ 

The Kurgan shrugged. ‘Nothing exciting. I can read minds.’

‘Ah.’

‘Don’t worry – only surface thoughts. But I can tell when people are lying, what their real motivations might be. When I concentrate. Mostly it’s a boring clamor.’ 

‘Can you tell what I’m thinking right now?’ 

‘A little. I sense your confusion, and love, and fear.’ The Kurgan walked slowly closer. ‘There’s no need to be afraid of me.’ 

‘No.’ Buckaroo stayed still, conscious of the precipice behind him. Thinking ruefully that if Reno knew he’d let himself get into such a situation, he would be dead for sure. But once the Kurgan stood beside him, his hand reached out to gently caress Buckaroo’s face. Which was almost as scary. ‘You can tell that I love you?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

Buckaroo laughed. ‘It must be true, then.’ The other man still seemed uneasy. ‘What’s wrong?’ 

‘I don’t know. I’m mortal now. And mortals doubt, don’t they?’

‘But you don’t have to doubt me.’ 

‘You will trust me that easily?’ 

‘Shouldn’t I? If we love each other, can’t that be all that matters between us?’ 

The Kurgan frowned. ‘It’s not like you to be so simplistic. You’ll regret it later.’

‘Only if you make me regret it.’ 

‘I can’t change who I am. I’m not playing a role for you this time.’ 

‘So I should get to know you again before committing myself?’ Buckaroo smiled, recalling their night together. ‘Come closer, then. Let me see if you’re the same lover.’ 

The Kurgan eyed him from an arm’s length away. ‘Just because you’re horny, Buckaroo, for the sake of the gods! You really care so little for your own safety? You want to tie yourself to me without knowing me?’ 

In the lightest of voices: ‘People do that every day.’ 

‘You poor cynic. What’s changed you?’ 

Buckaroo shrugged. ‘Since Rawhide died, things haven’t been quite the same. Penny’s left me. I couldn’t be a husband for her.’ 

‘So you’re hungry for love right now.’ 

‘You tell me – you’re the one who reads minds.’

‘I can tell you’re ignoring things,’ the Kurgan said heavily. ‘You just want a resolution so that you can go on from there.’ 

‘Then, how can you resist me?’ Buckaroo asked. ‘I’m playing right into your hands.’ 

‘Playing? Is this a game?’ The Kurgan sighed. ‘One more chance. I’ll give you that. Listen to what Reno would tell you.’ 

‘You’re proving you’re worthy of love.’ 

There was silence for a long while. The Kurgan gazed sightlessly to the horizon – twisted green jungle, then in the distance the sea, a blur where the sky touched down, hazy blues growing lighter until the atmosphere above them was faded almost to white. 

Buckaroo gazed at his friend. ‘What’s your name? What can I call you?’ 

‘I’ve often gone by Victor. It seems ironic now, but I guess it’s true enough a name until I find a better one.’ 

‘Rawhide was a good name.’

The Kurgan turned his face to Buckaroo. ‘It served for a time.’ He said, ‘Let me show you two things here.’

The first was Hanoi Xan’s grave. It had no special place in the sprawling graveyard, but it was one of a few that were actually marked. Buckaroo stood over it for a time. ‘You’re sure that it was Xan himself? He is definitely dead?’ 

‘I was as close to him as I am to you. I watched him as he died. There’s no mistake. I killed Grimalkin, too, so there would be no one but me capable of taking over the League.’ 

The second was what had been Xan’s control room. It was a blasted, blackened mess, open to the sky, devastated. Pieces of equipment lay amidst rocks and broken girders. The jungle had already started to reclaim it. 

Buckaroo picked his way into the center of the room. ‘You held the World Crime League in the palm of your hand. Then you destroyed it. Why?’

‘Why do you think?’ 

‘Some say you did it for me.’ 

‘And if I did?’ 

Buckaroo shrugged. ‘Reno refused to believe it. It’s too large a sacrifice to make just to impress someone.’ 

‘And I always had Reno figured as a romantic. Tell me, then, what else is there to make a sacrifice for?’ 

‘For the sake of what is right.’ Buckaroo walked back to his friend’s side. There was a query in his eyes that denied the certainty in his voice. 

The Kurgan returned his gaze blandly, not replying. He turned away, and Buckaroo followed him down the twisting stairway to Xan’s old rooms – a suite of crowded opulence. 

‘You live here?’ So different to Rawhide’s old room at the Institute – spartan, simple, containing the few belongings of a man who travelled lightly through life. Buckaroo remembered grieving in that room, trying to find some clue to the mystery, some link to the man he’d felt he’d known so well. But the few photos and possessions had been as enigmatically unhelpful as the immortal he’d found three months later, stalking the streets of New York. 

‘I had to take it over. Claim everything. I had to sleep here.’ 

Buckaroo wandered around, absently picking up and inspecting the many artefacts around the rooms, all of them priceless. ‘When we got the news, I could hardly believe it. I’ve lived with Xan’s threat since I was born. He was always unfinished business. It’s hard to understand that he’s not on this earth any longer.’ 

‘I, too, have lost my enemies.’ 

‘You seek to make more?’ Buckaroo watched the still face for a time. _He could teach Hikita-san to be inscrutable_. ‘Victor, when you won the Prize, did you find any answers?’ 

‘To why we existed? No. For a moment I was all of them, and then there was nothing.’ 

‘Did any of them know why? Didn’t you have some sort of religion, some beliefs that made sense of it?’ 

‘There was nothing. If anyone had known, it would have been Ramirez, but he knew as little as I did. We all respected holy ground – that was sanctuary. But it was more a convenience, a habit, than anything else. If there are gods, then people have worshipped them in so many ways, known them by so many different names, that I have no idea what they might be. I always suspected there would be nothing but stars and void out there.’

Buckaroo shook his head. ‘Just because the universe we perceive is larger than it was a hundred years ago, doesn’t mean there can’t be gods beyond what we know. There need be no limit to the dimensions co-existing…’ 

‘Existing – that’s all there is. You exist, just as I do, just as Jupiter does with its diamond heart, and the stars in Orion’s belt. Each is simply a fact – there need not be a reason also.’ 

‘But what was the purpose? Who devised the Prize? Who determined there would be a Gathering?’ 

‘Why do salmon return upstream to their birthplace? It’s simply a part of them that they should do that – it’s not proof of some divine plan.’ 

Buckaroo paced to and fro across the room. ‘What if you had chosen not to kill the Highlander and the others?’ 

‘Knowing MacLeod, the Gathering could have turned into one hell of a party.’ The Kurgan laughed for a moment. ‘It was like an elitist, world-wide club for him and Kastagir and their friends. But that was avoiding the issue. The unease of being around other immortals, the Quickening – it was all overwhelmingly a physical thing. We were loners most of the time. There was no way of avoiding the deaths – they could only be postponed, at best. And there was always the urge to know, to have the Prize and finally know it.’ 

‘It’s the ability to read minds?’ 

‘And mortality. A hard burden to bear.’

‘What would the Highlander have done with it if he’d won?’ Buckaroo came to sit at the table where the Kurgan leant. ‘How would he have used those things?’ 

‘He would have tried to help humanity. Who knows? He could have worked as an interpreter at the United Nations! But then, who would have believed him, or trusted him?’ 

Buckaroo said softly, ‘Maybe he wouldn’t have succeeded in doing as much as you have.’ He grinned. ‘You smashed the World Crime League, and Interpol have been having a field day ever since, sorting out the pieces. It’s easy pickings for them, now there’s no control, no support. So why did you do it?’ 

‘You’re the criminal psychologist – you figure it out.’ 

‘I suppose that the Prize went to the immortal who knew humanity best, who’d seen civilizations succeed and fail. There’s a reason to be found in that.’ 

‘There’s no reason, and no point in inventing one.’ 

Buckaroo gazed at his friend for a while, before his grin turned impish. ‘I’ve been trying to figure out what’s so different about you.’ 

The Kurgan eyed him warily. ‘What?’

‘For the first time since we met, you’ve aged a year. You’re no longer a fresh-faced twenty-five-year-old.’ 

‘It’s like a disease.’ The Kurgan grimaced. ‘Mortality is a disease eating away from within. First my immortal soul, and now my mortal body. The Prize was a curse.’ 

Buckaroo seemed determined not to take these bleak words seriously. ‘Getting old has its advantages,’ he declared lightly. 

‘I can’t think of any. After living three thousand years of youth, what can there be for me now other than decline and death?’ 

Buckaroo smiled at him. ‘I’ll be getting old, too.’ 

Slowly, the Kurgan turned to regard his friend. ‘Is that a proposal?’ 

‘You’re the expert in humanity – you figure it out.’ 

For a long moment the Kurgan watched him. Carefully he reached out to again caress Buckaroo’s face, then run his fingers back through the waves of black hair. ‘Why do you trust me so easily?’ he whispered. 

‘Why do you keep warning me away?’ 

‘You don’t _know_ me.’ The Kurgan’s hand gently cupped the base of the other’s skull.

Buckaroo stretched forward as the touch brought back teasing memories. _It has been a year, and my mind still replays every sweet caress, every sweat-soaked thrust_. ‘Let me at you, then. Let me know you.’ 

The Kurgan sighed, his hand continuing to massage Buckaroo’s tender skin. ‘What happened to the calm and sensible Buckaroo Banzai? What I have here is all passion and carelessness.’ 

‘Was I calm and sensible when I met Peggy?’ 

‘You had no cause to be.’ 

‘What cause is there now? Tell me.’ 

‘What do you think I asked you here for?’ 

Buckaroo considered him carefully, attention blurred by those supple fingers in his hair, against his flesh. ‘Maybe you feel much the same for me as I do for you.’ 

‘Nothing else?’ 

‘Some things, maybe. Nothing bad, Victor. I don’t believe you mean me harm.’ Buckaroo said gently, ‘You’re not used to being trusted, are you? Read my mind, then, and know that I love you.’ 

The Kurgan smiled. ‘I can’t _read_ it – you don’t have a single coherent thought in there. It’s all a hazy, sensual longing.’

‘How can you just stand there? Don’t you want me?’ 

‘Of course I do.’ 

‘Rawhide and I trusted one another.’ 

‘Yes.’ Voice suddenly hoarse. 

‘Rawhide and I –’ Buckaroo stood, stepped closer. ‘Why weren’t we lovers then?’ he demanded. ‘How could we not have been lovers?’ 

‘I couldn’t let you know me.’ 

‘The longer we’re together now, the more you talk like him, the more I feel I do know you. I want to discover the rest of you.’ 

‘If I react to you as if –’ The Kurgan searched for words, turning his face away from Buckaroo’s closeness. ‘As if it were all that simple again!’ 

‘It _is_ simple. We love each other, and that’s all that matters right now.’ Buckaroo leant forward, lips hungry, certain that his kiss would be returned. 

‘Excuse me, guys…’ Seth’s over-hearty voice interrupted the pair’s embrace. 

Buckaroo turned away. The Kurgan asked, voice reasonable, ‘What is it, Seth?’ 

‘Everyone’s waiting the meal on you and our honorable guest. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind, of course, but tonight I’m famished.’ 

‘All right, we’ll be there in a moment.’ The Kurgan reached out to take Buckaroo’s hand in his own. ‘Give yourself time,’ he whispered when they were alone again. 

Buckaroo turned an ice-blue gaze on him. ‘What do you read in me that I don’t know about?’ 

‘Nothing, absolutely nothing. Come down for dinner. We can talk.’ 

A humorless smile greeted this. ‘What _have_ we been doing?’ 

Over a dinner that was left mostly untouched by the guest of honor, Buckaroo reverted the topic of conversation to the immortals and the Prize. He threw question after question at his friend, unwilling to accept that the man who had lived forty full lifetimes had as few answers as Buckaroo did. 

‘We will know when we die,’ became the Kurgan’s implacable answer. 

‘What if there is nothing to know?’ 

‘Then we will not care for answers anymore.’ 

Suddenly turning from baffled philosophy to angry friendship, Buckaroo demanded, ‘Why did Rawhide die? Why didn’t you just leave us?’ 

The Kurgan turned quiet eyes on him. ‘It was the only way I could say farewell. I thought you would rather grieve than feel betrayed.’

‘You should have told me then!’ 

‘Yes, I see that now.’ The Kurgan sighed. ‘Buckaroo, you seem to mistake age for wisdom.’ 

‘But you’re not old, are you? You’re only twenty-six.’ 

‘So you think I have some growing up to do.’ 

‘No. I’m sorry. But it is so frustrating that in all this time, you have found no answers.’ 

‘They are not there to be found. I have mentioned Ramirez to you. He would have found answers if they existed. He always strove for purpose.’

Buckaroo gazed at the man beside him. It was so bizarre that he should have lived so long, seen so many things, that Buckaroo had to keep reminding himself of the truth of it. He began to wonder if he would, after all, sleep alone that night. When his companion had so many, many years behind him, who could know what he wanted? The Kurgan had told him he had never loved before – words of truth – but that might simply mean he could do without love. 

‘Good,’ the Kurgan murmured, gazing at him with his sharp, clear eyes. <You begin to doubt me.>

‘Must I? I don’t want to.’ 

‘That is why you must.’ 

‘Don’t speak in riddles.’ 

The Kurgan’s familiar face wore the enigmatic mask again. Buckaroo watched him, knowing that his own thoughts could be read so easily, and yet unable to tell what was going on behind the Kurgan’s cool smile and grey eyes. 

♦

There was a light on over the bed in his room, but Buckaroo chose to sit in the dark on the window ledge. Sliding the wooden lattice back, he gazed across dark jungle to the sea, and the reflection of the moon. 

The Kurgan had been called away from their dinner table to oversee something or other – Buckaroo had been too dazed to attend to the details. _Don’t speak in riddles_ , Buckaroo had said. But the man _was_ a riddle. Even in Rawhide’s simplicity, there had been that deep sense of mystery. Though there had always been a bond between them; from the very first there had been a friendship beyond anything that Buckaroo had known before. _Maybe I’m crazy to expect that to still exist_. 

And apart from the yearning for their friendship to be resurrected, there was also the longing for the love they had made between them that dark night in New York City. The Kurgan had been both knowing and naively discovering, both tender and hungrily rough. Buckaroo sighed, leaning back against the cold stone. He had never felt the like, before or since – and that wasn’t simply because the Kurgan was the only man he had ever made love with.

Peggy had been all sweetness and light, all rosy glow and laughter. Lively yet simple in her tastes, sex with her had been a delight, a spring day. Penny had been a desperate reincarnation of those feelings – too soon touched with sadness. Her pregnancy had provided an easy excuse to draw back from the lonely, needy loving and turn to a companionable but sorry kind of marriage. 

And then the Kurgan. Burning with the need to get as physically close to the immortal as he had been emotionally to Rawhide, Buckaroo had been swamped, utterly taken over by the insistent dark sensuality, the strong insatiable embraces, the molten shared relief. 

Remembering that night over the following lonely year, replaying each move in his dreams, his fantasies. Feeling the occasional brush of the Kurgan’s mind on his… <Xan’s dead. I killed him.> And then, hours later, the news confirming that, indeed, the Kurgan had taken over the World Crime League. Wondering if he’d done that simply to gain the power, if the Kurgan was now Buckaroo’s enemy as Hanoi Xan had been –

The Kurgan walked into his room, startling Buckaroo from his memories. Looking straight at him, into him, through the darkness. His thoughts full of need. Buckaroo tried to project that across the space between them. A tiny smile grew on the Kurgan’s face. 

‘Victor, _please_. I am so full of need. I can’t hide that from you.’ Buckaroo gestured in despair. ‘Relieve me of this! I want you so bad I can’t think straight. If you want me back to being reasonable, then come over here and make it happen.’ 

‘And what of tomorrow?’ 

‘How can there even be a tomorrow if you don’t sleep with me tonight? I can’t believe you don’t want this, too. I don’t care whether it’s sex, or making love, or whatever.’ 

The Kurgan showed no sign of sympathy. 

‘Just keep in mind – if I die here of frustration, Reno will be looking for you with a mighty big chip on his shoulder.’ And Buckaroo had a riotous image of the man, armed and dangerous, glowering up at the Kurgan – _‘All you had to do was make love with him, for Pete’s sake.’_

The Kurgan pretended wariness, and walked slowly closer. ‘That’s probably the best reason you’ve given me. You should know I don’t want you to trust me, or love me.’ 

‘Unfortunately I do love you, of course,’ Buckaroo said lightly, nerve-endings singing confusedly as the Kurgan drew nearer. ‘As for trust; well, I trust you to be as good a lover as you were a year ago.’ 

A smile greeted this declaration. ‘I’m as hungry for you as I was a year ago. I haven’t felt –’ The words stopped as the Kurgan leant close for Buckaroo’s kiss. His passion finally being answered, Buckaroo moaned low, hands pulling the other’s body closer to his, searching out bare skin under the heavy clothes. For a moment the pair swayed dangerously close to the precipice beyond the window, but the Kurgan pulled Buckaroo to him, taking his weight against him before stumbling clumsily towards the bed. 

The mad kiss continued erratically as each fumbled with the other’s and their own clothing. ‘Victor – haven’t felt what?’

A wordless mumble was the only reply, as the Kurgan buried his face in the angles between Buckaroo’s neck and shoulder, mouth busy. 

‘Tell me. I want to know.’ 

‘Thought we’d finished with talking.’ 

Buckaroo arched back as the Kurgan ran kisses down his naked chest. For a long moment, he couldn’t collect his thoughts. They tumbled together onto the bed, still half-dressed. ‘I’m hungry for your words as well as your body,’ Buckaroo finally said. 

But the other, now he’d allowed the lovemaking, seemed uninterested in more talk. He sat back on his heels, quickly, intently dispensing with the rest of their clothing. 

Buckaroo lay beneath him, content to let the Kurgan do whatever he would. ‘I love you,’ he said, ‘and I want to know what you started to say just then.’ 

‘I haven’t felt like I do for you for a long time.’ The Kurgan lay down over Buckaroo, eagerly moving against him, thrusting his cock beside Buckaroo’s. 

‘I haven’t felt like I do for you _ever_ ,’ Buckaroo happily countered. The Kurgan kissed him on the mouth, effectively stopping the one-sided conversation. Soon Buckaroo cried out, breaking the kiss. ‘No!’ The dry friction of the Kurgan’s skin and cock and balls against him after the long lonely months proved too much. He came, clutching the other to him, convulsing in reaction, groaning an incoherent prayer. 

Before he’d had time to recover, the Kurgan had knelt back, rolled him over, and entered him. Buckaroo cried out again at the unexpectedness of it rather than the pain. He knew from their last time – if he stayed relaxed it might feel uncomfortable but it wouldn’t hurt. Grimacing at the paradox, he forced his tensed muscles to ease. Victor’s grip on his hips felt bruising. _I said I didn’t care if it was sex – that will teach me! But maybe he was as hungry as I was, stored up inside_. The Kurgan gave one deep, almost surprised yell as he came. His seed lubricated his last thrusts. 

For a long moment the Kurgan was still, his cock as deeply embedded in Buckaroo as if the two had fused together. And then his thoughts turned outward a little, and he scrambled to withdraw from Buckaroo, to turn him over gently. ‘I hurt you.’ 

‘It’s all right.’ Tears were evident in Buckaroo’s eyes, and his voice was strained. ‘One of these days, I’m really going to enjoy that. I love it when you touch me there – it’s just getting used to the rest.’ 

The Kurgan wiped sweat from the other’s forehead. ‘How much does it hurt?’ Buckaroo didn’t answer. ‘I’m the one you can’t lie to, remember? Not that you were ever much good at lying.’

‘Just hold me, lover. Ease my heart – the pain’s in my heart. I love you so very much.’ 

‘I can’t do this,’ the Kurgan suddenly declared, and he tried to pull away. 

‘Victor, please. Stay with me.’

‘I can’t have sex with you. It’s not going to work.’ 

‘Then make love with me, Victor. Please.’ 

‘By all the gods…’ he cried angrily, ‘why ever did I ask you to come here?’ The Kurgan regarded Buckaroo’s tears. His voice softened to gruffness. ‘Have you got a handkerchief around here somewhere?’ With Buckaroo’s directions, he found one, and handed it to the other man. He turned off the light, and lay beside Buckaroo again, holding him carefully. ‘You love me still.’ 

‘Of course I do.’ 

‘I haven’t felt like I do for you ever before. It’s the love that makes the difference. This last year without you –’ 

‘Make love with me, Victor.’ Buckaroo strengthened his embrace, turned to kiss the Kurgan slowly, lovingly. ‘Let yourself love me.’ 

‘No, no,’ the Kurgan murmured in protest. But, quiescent, he allowed Buckaroo’s gentle caresses. ‘Let me go, let me be.’ 

Buckaroo paid no attention to the words. Soon Victor’s hands became as tenderly eager as his own. The warm grey eyes contained only love and vulnerability, the full lips lost that determined line, the soul was for once at peace. They made love together, Buckaroo smiling, the Kurgan serious and maybe a little awed.

♦

Still awake at dawn, Buckaroo lay sprawled across the larger man, talking about whatever came into his head at the time. For once he felt wary of the world’s claims on them that would soon disturb their solitude. Some measure of companionship had returned to the pair, as important as the lovemaking, recalling their ten years of friendship. The Kurgan was by turns silent and withdrawn, or tender and loving. 

‘You were always so quiet, so contained,’ Buckaroo said. ‘I used to envy that.’ 

‘I was quiet, but you brought me peace.’ The Kurgan’s eyes were so nakedly true that Buckaroo felt a joyous hurt when looking into them. ‘I came to you empty, and you filled me with love. I wanted occupation, and you gave me purpose.’

‘You fill my ears with poetry,’ Buckaroo said happily. 

‘I used to be contained, but you made me need you.’ 

Buckaroo watched him. ‘Smile for me, Victor – you haven’t smiled all night.’ 

‘How could I? I feel infinitely sad.’

But when Buckaroo tried to question this, the Kurgan allowed himself a rueful smile before distracting Buckaroo with more love-play. 

There was a fragility now mixed in with his roughness that the Kurgan could not hope to hide. 

♦

‘You said you’d have it cleared by today!’ the Kurgan roared. The open sky took his words with equanimity; a faint echo sounded off the far rock walls of his city and then was gone. 

The small native of Sabah standing before him shrugged, apparently without fear. ‘The water table was lower than we thought. We had to dig further down.’ 

‘All this useless damn domesticity!’ The Kurgan turned away. ‘Just let it be.’ 

‘But you were right, my Lord. The river carries disease, and this well water will be pure.’

_Maybe I need to be alone again_. He’d lived so long, _too long_ , among people. As Rawhide, living at the Institute, he’d buried himself in all the mundane detail of their lives, disguised himself behind the mask of usefulness, efficiency. It had been just what Buckaroo needed. Buckaroo of the clear, sweeping vision had relied on him totally in those early days. The Kurgan could do with a Rawhide of his own now, to deal with all these lives. It was one thing to take over Sabah, and earn the feudal-style gratitude of the motley people he now ruled. But he had found himself wanting to do something more for them – they had lived in fear and poverty for far too long. But he’d given too much of himself by now. Over the past few days, Buckaroo had at least made him see that. All that remained of the Kurgan was a raw, naked wound. 

‘We’ll have the well finished by this time tomorrow,’ the other was saying. 

_Can’t you see me bleed?_ the Kurgan raged silently at him. _Can’t you see my heart pulse against the open air?_ And when the man didn’t reply, he stalked off without a word. 

♦

When he couldn’t be with Victor, Buckaroo hunted out Seth, and together they explored the nooks and crannies of Sabah like children on holiday. The cave city stretched back into a mountain range, with huge echoing rooms, some natural and some hollowed out by hard labor. Stairways and passageways crept and twisted between the caves; many worn by centuries of footsteps, many more forgotten. 

‘I haven’t seen you smile like that for years,’ Seth finally blurted out as they stood together on a windswept lookout high above the city’s entrance. It was a smile that could not escape notice or comment – at the worst of times, Buckaroo’s sculpted face and direct gaze were arresting – now, in his best of times, the joy fairly radiated from him. The smile shone, the eyes glowed as unrelentingly as any other human’s would have done. But with Buckaroo there was also the trusting vulnerability that was a pure strength, the sense that all his emotions could be shared, that he was open to the world’s ebb and flow. Few humans could avoid self-consciousness or fear long enough to so freely communicate their truest selves. 

‘I haven’t felt this happy for years. Not since Peggy died.’ And Buckaroo was pleased to know that he could speak her name with peace, that the old useless regrets and grief were healing. 

‘It’s good to see,’ Seth commented in the sardonic tone he usually adopted with Buckaroo. He had often been uncomfortable with the way this acquaintance of his would display his innermost feelings. Helping Buckaroo to try to solve the mysteries surrounding Peggy’s death had been a painful experience. The man’s grief had been so indecently open it had pervaded all who came into contact with him. As his joy did now. ‘Does this mean you’ll be hanging around Sabah for a while?’ 

Buckaroo shrugged, the smile never fading. ‘I’ll probably be visiting now and then.’ He gazed out seaward. ‘Seth, life should always be this straightforward. Simplicity is something I’ve been missing for far too long.’

Eyeing him wearily, Seth could only agree. But then he took the plunge. ‘I just wish your friend was as happy.’ 

‘What do you mean?’ 

‘Gods, he’s been giving us hell. Like Xan on a bad day.’ Seth had the dubious honor of seeing the first cloud to cross Buckaroo’s face. 

‘I didn’t realize.’ 

‘No, I figured you were higher than a kite.’ Seth’s grin faded as he faced Buckaroo’s candor. ‘It’s not like you to get so caught up that you can’t see the truth.’ 

Sighing, Buckaroo bent his head. ‘I’ve been clutching at straws. He’s never been the most demonstrative person. But I wanted to believe he was content.’ 

‘Something’s eating away at him. I know it’s none of my business, but –’

‘Thank you, Seth.’ Buckaroo turned away, grief fresh in him as he’d never thought to feel again. 

♦

The Kurgan was silent, even sullen. Whenever Buckaroo stopped talking, he didn’t reply, but would claim Buckaroo’s mouth in a heavy kiss. Occasionally he’d run a careful finger along the curve of bicep, the angular hip, the tender skin at the juncture of thigh to groin. He gazed long and hard as if wondering what accident of genes made this body, of the innumerable he had seen and touched, so perfect, so suited. 

Sharing Buckaroo’s bed, waking naked and satiated with the night’s lovemaking, the Kurgan had found some kind of tranquility. The black carrion crows that had eaten his soul were peaceful as he lay with Buckaroo. They had been as raucous and fearful as ever when he’d first given in to Buckaroo’s needs a few nights before and performed the ritual of sex. But when Buckaroo’s pain and love had broken him down to vulnerability, the crows had quietened for the first time in far too long. 

‘What are you thinking about?’ Buckaroo asked. He waited for an answer that didn’t come. ‘You’re not even listening to me, are you?’ 

‘Listening to what?’

‘I’m just thinking ahead. I’ll have to get back to the Institute soon – I left in rather a hurry. And there’s Evan to think of.’

‘I want you to stay here.’ 

‘You know I can’t. Just as you can’t come and stay with me. You have your own corner of the world now.’

‘I planned on you staying.’

Buckaroo sat up to better see his lover’s expression. Along with the sullenness, there was a return of the enigmatic mask. ‘How can you expect me to stay?’ 

‘Once, you would have given up everything to be with me.’ 

‘I was overcome,’ Buckaroo explained gently. ‘I was maddened, and you were a solution, a way of forgetting. But it couldn’t have continued – I have loyalties elsewhere.’

‘You love me. Your loyalties are with me now.’ 

‘ _Some_ loyalties, Victor. You must understand I have others.’

_‘You don’t understand,’_ the Kurgan insisted, grabbing Buckaroo’s arms, holding him forcibly close. ‘I need you here with me – you have no idea how impossible it has been for me without you.’

‘Lover, we’ll be together. Always in spirit, sometimes in the flesh. We can see each other, we can meet. But I can’t ask you to give up Sabah, and you can’t ask me to give up the Institute and Evan.’ 

‘But I can ask you. In fact, I insist.’ 

Buckaroo watched him carefully. ‘Victor, how on earth can you possibly say that to me? You know as well as I do that no human being can belong to another.’ 

The Kurgan abruptly moved over Buckaroo, kissing him savagely until Buckaroo could not help but moan with pleasure and clutch the other to him. And the Kurgan said, ‘Of course you belong to me.’ 

‘We’re lovers – but you don’t possess me. I can’t believe you’re serious.’ 

‘I warned you that you don’t know me.’ 

‘I knew you for ten years. You would never have spoken of owning another person then.’ 

‘I’m not Rawhide. If you react to me as if I am, you make a grave mistake.’ 

‘I realize –’ 

But the Kurgan interrupted him. ‘That’s the mistake you made with Penny, isn’t it? Reacting to her as if she were Peggy.’ 

‘No! That’s cruel to accuse me of that. I made every effort –’ 

‘The poor, foolish woman.’ 

Buckaroo moved to pull away, but the Kurgan’s grip was too strong. ‘That was different anyway,’ he tried to say reasonably. ‘Rawhide is a part of you.’ 

‘A role I played for a time.’ 

‘A person we created!’ 

The Kurgan smiled coolly. ‘Yes, you did help me shape him. That makes him even less a part of _me_ , doesn’t it?’ 

‘Victor!’ Buckaroo cried out. ‘Are you trying to drive me away? What do you mean by all this?’ 

‘You’re staying here. Don’t argue with me, lover.’ 

‘ _Lover?_ Is that what you call me now?’ 

‘You made it that way. You made us lovers.’

‘What would you have had us be?’ 

‘I would have you as mine. To have and to hold.’ 

‘Don’t you dare use those words to me! You pervert their meaning.’ 

The Kurgan still wouldn’t let Buckaroo go. ‘You love me. What other words should I use?’ 

‘You prove yourself unworthy of love.’ 

‘And yet you still love me. Stay here with me, Buckaroo.’ 

‘You’re not the man I love,’ Buckaroo said. ‘Are you? You might break my heart, but I do not love you. I love Rawhide, and I love Victor. You are neither of those people.’ 

‘I _am_ Victor, at least.’ 

Buckaroo was amazed to see his own bleakness reflected in the Kurgan’s face. ‘Victor had love in him. You have none. I do not know you. I should have listened to Victor’s warnings.’ 

‘They are both a part of me,’ the Kurgan whispered. 

‘You used them to trap me. If you had listened to them, you would have known it was pointless. They knew that you cannot possess another human being. Your game plan failed. The gods only know what you wanted, but you lost.’ 

Still gripping Buckaroo’s arms, the Kurgan rolled over to lie on top of Buckaroo, so that he could not move. There was determination in the line of his mouth, and his eyes roved hungrily over Buckaroo’s face. 

‘You cannot have _me_ ,’ Buckaroo whispered fiercely. ‘I don’t care what you do – you cannot own me.’ 

For a long moment, the Kurgan lowered his head to Buckaroo’s chest and ran his lips across the slight hair, the nipples. Buckaroo braced himself to fight back as soon as he had an opening. But the Kurgan soon appeared to lose interest, and rolled away to lie alone. 

‘I cannot believe the lack of imagination in you,’ Buckaroo murmured. He slowly, sadly got out of his lover’s bed. ‘For the love Victor offered, I would have given my all.’ 

‘Enough!’ the Kurgan cried out. ‘Don’t believe I have finished with you, Buckaroo Banzai.’ Getting up and throwing on a robe, he stalked to the door. ‘I will let you leave,’ he said, ‘this time, and this time only. Beware of the enemy you have created, Banzai. Remember I’ll be the enemy that you love.’ 

‘You don’t understand, even now? I have no love for you. Only regret. You had possibilities, but you sold yourself short. How fitting that you should be Hanoi Xan’s successor.’ 

‘I am more than he ever was.’ 

Buckaroo shook his head. ‘Beware of the enemy you have created – because I’ll be the enemy who knows you.’ 

The Kurgan’s expression had deepened to rage. ‘Then you know that I destroyed the World Crime League simply because I was bored with it. There was no other reason.’ 

‘That’s not true. Victor did it for love of me – and you did it to lure me here. Another move in your game plan. The destruction of the League is the one good thing to come out of all this.’

‘ _All this?_ You give me purpose, Banzai. I may be heading for Hell – but I will drag you down with me.’ 

At this threat from the man he’d made love with not an hour before, Buckaroo’s eyes glittered cold. ‘If that is your purpose in life,’ he stated calmly, ‘then you will surely burn in Hell, eternally alone.’ 

The Kurgan strode to his side and glared down at Buckaroo. ‘Do not be so sure of yourself. You fly like a moth to my flame in life – why should we not burn together in death?’ 

‘Are you mad that you still talk to me like this?’ Buckaroo whispered. 

‘It is not over between us.’ 

‘I am your dupe no longer. I know you too well now.’ 

The Kurgan gazed at him implacably, and then politely smiled. He even executed a mocking bow. ‘Until we meet again.’ 

Buckaroo turned away, and the other left the room, finally leaving him alone. _Over. Thank the gods that’s over_. But he felt regrets mingled with the relief, all the old regrets again, and some fresh ones added to them. _Maybe I’m just not made for love. Or love’s not made for me_. He wandered to his familiar perch on the window ledge and watched the morning mists slowly fade into insubstantial wisps. If only Victor had truly existed, if only Peggy had not died. But love did not seem to be his lot in life. Buckaroo sighed. _There’s Evan, always Evan. If she did not love me, I’d be a sorry kind of man_. 

Seth arrived shortly. ‘I’ve been asked to escort you to the harbor.’ 

‘To see me off the premises?’ 

‘To ensure your safety, of course.’ 

The two shared a humorless grin. Buckaroo pulled on the rest of his clothes, and quickly packed up the few belongings he had brought. 

‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry things didn’t work out.’

‘Thanks, Seth.’ Buckaroo took a last look around the room where he had been so happy and so deceived. He’d had his chances at love, and each time had failed. Death and ghosts and lies plotted against love, with his own naivety and madness and hope leading him witless to despair. Enough. Love had had its chances with him, but he was love’s fool no more. 

♦

The Kurgan sat alone in Xan’s rooms, staring bleakly at the stone wall. His soul, once full of hungry black carrion crows, was an empty void as cold as the far reaches of space. Somehow the wasteland inside him was far, far worse than the raucous crows. There was nothing left him now. Even the bottle of wine was finished, even the day was drawing to a close. The day, the last day on which he could call Buckaroo a lover. 

Not that he had wanted the love for its own sake, but rather for the power it had given him over Buckaroo. _I would have given my all for Victor’s love_ , he had said. Just how the Kurgan had planned it. He had deceived and conquered Hanoi Xan; next on the list was Buckaroo Banzai.

Except that Buckaroo had betrayed him into revealing his own love, that secret heart within him exposed under the surgeon’s prying, delicate fingers. Like responding irrepressibly to like. And Buckaroo not even realizing the power he then held over the Kurgan, let alone using it. The _expert in humanity_ had been caught in the very trap he had laid for the other. His prey, now his unknowing captor, remained innocently free in his honest and generous passion – until, realizing the truth, he had made it clear he had never even been in danger. 

The Kurgan tried to touch Buckaroo’s mind. He found a whirl of anger and pain – and a determined wall against him. _< How dare you now invade me?>_

<Don’t forget me…> the Kurgan threatened. But he cut off the contact abruptly. Life, mortal life, could be incredibly meaningless. Lately, he had begun to understand so many human fears. 

A fresh bottle of wine was placed on the table by his side. Seth retreated to a respectful distance. The Kurgan slowly turned to regard him. 

‘You looked like a man in need of a drink,’ Seth explained with an eloquent shrug.

The Kurgan poured himself a generous glass. ‘Is he gone?’ _Of course he’s gone_. 

‘He bought passage on the _Ayesha_. She sailed an hour ago.’

_And if he let me reach for him now, I would feel the sea wind on his face_. The Kurgan found another glass, and poured a drink for Seth. ‘You didn’t go with him.’ 

‘No. He said I could work with him, try for a place at the Institute –’ Seth smiled suddenly. ‘But you know that.’

‘And not so long ago, you would have welcomed the chance,’ the Kurgan prompted. 

‘Legitimacy at last! But I guess it’s time I stopped kidding myself. I’m more your sort of person than his.’ 

‘You fascinate me,’ the Kurgan replied in jaded tones. ‘What sort of person am I?’ 

‘Neither good nor bad – you simply exist.’ 

‘In much reduced circumstances,’ the larger man muttered, and he fell back into contemplation for a time. Seth waited patiently, out of the Kurgan’s line of sight. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet that Seth could hardly hear him. 

‘I used to be thoroughly bad. But you need purpose to be the one thing or the other. Maybe Buckaroo was my last chance –’ _To own him or to love him; the bad or the good_. ‘He would have given me purpose, but I chose the wrong path. Predestined. And now there’s nothing.’ 

‘There’s the whole world.’ 

The Kurgan laughed. ‘I used to know that. Truly, it used to be mine.’ But he had lost the world when he had won the Prize. He had lost far too much. ‘I have no heart left, Seth. No soul, no reasons.’ 

It was Seth’s turn to laugh. ‘Welcome to the human race.’ 

He had not even qualified for the only immortality available to mortals. The prize of Buckaroo’s love had been withdrawn from the competition. ‘I could see _forever_ in his eyes. In every moment there was an eternity.’ 

‘So humans yearn and regret and doubt and despair. You’re learning fast.’ 

‘I wasn’t even human a year ago.’ 

‘I know,’ said Seth. 

Finally the Kurgan’s full attention was on his companion. ‘Is that so?’ 

‘I’ve been around you enough to notice, that’s all. At first I thought you were the oddest man I’d ever met – even odder than Buckaroo. Then I knew you were simply the oddest.’ 

‘But the oddest what?’ the Kurgan added, smiling ruefully. ‘It’s a question I now ask myself.’ 

‘You are a human, newborn. An unwritten page.’ 

‘Seth, answer me a mystery. The biggest mystery of all.’

‘If I can.’ 

‘What do human beings _do_ with their lives?’ 

Seth laughed. ‘Seeing as I’ve done nothing much at all with my own life, I can hardly begin to answer. My page is also unwritten. Maybe a few scribbles around the margins…’ 

The Kurgan sighed, and swallowed the rest of his wine. 

‘I’ve found that company helps. Eases the loneliness, fights the despair. Avoids too much yearning and doubt. A burden shared, and all that.’ 

‘Is that an offer?’ 

‘Good old-fashioned friendship, you know?’ 

‘I know,’ the Kurgan replied. ‘I know all too well.’

‘Is that a refusal?’ 

The Kurgan considered him for a long moment. ‘No, Seth. It is not a refusal.’ And – maybe it was the wine in him – he reached out to pull Seth into a rough and friendly embrace. 

♦

Buckaroo scooped Evan from Reno’s lap and tossed her up in the air. Evan gurgled delightedly. Reno shuddered. ‘I guess that’s the sort of thing you can only do to your own baby,’ he commented. 

‘Ah, she loves it, my bonny Evan.’ Firmly in his arms again, Evan smiled up at her father. ‘It is so good to see you again, you sweet little bundle of joy.’ 

‘Thanks!’ 

‘You, too, Reno.’ Buckaroo laughed. ‘How are things? Any problems since I’ve been gone?’

‘Nothing we couldn’t handle, believe it or not.’ Reno added, ‘I guess you know already – Penny’s gone.’

‘Yes, I knew it.’ 

‘Went this morning. Don’t know how, but she must have known you were on your way back. Me, I didn’t expect you for days yet. If not years…’

Buckaroo laughed again at the _so tell me the whole story_ tone Reno could never keep out of his voice. There he was, one of the staunchest supporters of Buckaroo’s policy of never prying into a person’s life – and he was always dying to be told the whole story. ‘I always seem to choose lovers who can read my mind,’ Buckaroo commented. 

‘Yeah? How inconvenient.’ Reno sat watching father and child get to know each other again for a few minutes. ‘Well, aren’t you gonna tell me _anything?’_

‘I have been feasting with mine enemy…’ Buckaroo murmured over Evan’s rather less literary contribution to the conversation. 

‘Where, on a sudden…’ Reno prompted. 

‘One hath wounded me, that’s by me wounded.’ 

‘So, interpret for me.’ 

‘The famous love affair? It didn’t work out. It was nice for a while, but I was kidding myself. I don’t know who he is anymore.’ 

‘You think we’ve got another Hanoi Xan on our hands?’ 

‘He’s not our friend, but he won’t be our enemy either – at least not yet. Give him time to decide. I don’t think he knows what to do with himself right now, except start to learn how to be human.’ Buckaroo smiled. ‘You know Seth’s there with him.’

‘Seth! Really? Doing what?’ 

‘Being his friend at the moment. That’s what he needed.’ 

‘But what about you?’ 

‘I was his lover – and I hurt him, I burnt him. He didn’t want to love.’ After a moment’s pondering, Buckaroo said, ‘In the end, he forced me away. He was cruel to be kind. At least, that’s what I conclude…’

Reno watched the other man carefully. ‘But you’re all right, Buckaroo?’ 

He was reassured with a smile. ‘I wasn’t at first – I was burnt, too. But I reached simplicity again, Reno. I finally shed all the old madness, all the old obsessions. I came to realize how complicated my life had become since Peggy died. Not good for the soul.’ 

‘So, what now?’ 

‘I get on with my life. Stop getting all messed up.’ Buckaroo smiled a little wistfully. ‘And maybe when Penny’s sorted out her life, too, I could start courting her again. We never had a chance last time – I was too caught up with Peggy and Rawhide, and she was so full of rage at the world. We were both quite mad in each our own ways, and both so bewildered.’

‘You’re a hopeless romantic if ever I’ve seen one – courting your own wife indeed…’

Buckaroo grinned at him. ‘It seems the simplest thing to do.’ 

‘Courting Penny?’ Reno remained skeptical. ‘The last thing Penny ever was, was simple.’ 

‘Exactly.’ _And one day_ , Buckaroo daydreamed, _she’ll look up at me and say, ‘Life should always be this straightforward.’_ Buckaroo anticipated seeing her, with that strength and determined individuality, and that survival streak a mile wide – he looked forward to her finding the simplicity of her own place in the world. And maybe she could still love him after all they’d been through apart and together. Maybe he’d propose again, and know the joy of being free to love this amazing woman. A proper wedding ceremony like she’d secretly wanted – it hadn’t seemed appropriate or auspicious last time – but without the pomp and circumstance that had been thrust on him and Peggy. _And we can get on with life, and there’ll be a sibling for Evan, and_ … 

‘Hey, boss, good to see you again.’ Perfect Tommy wandered in, followed by most of the residents, all curious and eager to welcome Buckaroo home. 

‘It’s good to be back,’ Buckaroo said, standing with Evan in one arm to give each of his friends a heartfelt hug. ‘It is so good to be back.’ 

♦

The Kurgan stood dour with Seth at his side, amongst the milling people of Sabah. The first water was being drawn from their new well. Carefully, the plain wooden bucket was winched up from the depths, and unfastened to be passed from hand to hand to the Kurgan. His people awaited his verdict silently. The clear, pure water tasted delicious. Smiling, the Kurgan passed the bucket on. He watched children taste clean water for the first time in their lives. The sight was curiously satisfying. 

‘This is all your fault,’ Seth said mildly, grinning at all he saw around them. ‘You know you belong here now, don’t you?’ 

_As much as anywhere_. The Kurgan watched his people carefully. Such contentment was contagious. ‘I never meant for this to happen,’ he admitted. 

‘Well, you’re stuck with it now, my friend. It seems the last few months have been good for all of us – unprecedented but true.’

‘Indeed,’ was the distant reply. But Seth could always hear beyond the customary irony. The Kurgan allowed himself a further smile. Placing an arm firmly around Seth’s shoulders, he walked back to the main hall amidst the crowd. His people were jubilantly planning a feast and he, for one, had a few things he could contemplate celebrating.

♦


End file.
